The Samuel Rubin Foundation (SRF) was incorporated in 1949 by Samuel Rubin, with proceeds from the Fabergé Perfumes company he had founded 13 years earlier.
SRF’s stated mission is “to carry on the vision of its founder, Samuel Rubin, whose life was dedicated to the pursuit of peace and justice and the search for an equitable reallocation of the world’s resources.” Toward that end, the Foundation funds “global security efforts in the fields of social, economic, political, civil and cultural rights.”

In 1963 SRF and the Stern Family Fund together provided seed money that was crucial for creating the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a think tank that consistently promoted anti-American, pro-Communist causes throughout the Cold War. Samuel Rubin’s daughter, Cora Weiss, was a director of SRF from its inception. She later became president of the Foundation. Her husband, Peter Weiss, served as chairman and treasurer of SRF, and also as IPS’s first vice president.

Since its inception, SRF has been a consistent funder of leftist groups and causes. Among the many beneficiaries of its philanthropy have been the following: the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute; the Alliance for Justice; the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation; the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Center for International Policy; the Council on Foundations; Democracy Now!; Fourth Freedom Forum; Global Exchange; Grassroots International; Human Rights Watch; the Immigrant Workers Resource Center; the Institute for Policy Studies; the Institute for Public Accuracy; the Jane Addams Peace Association (through which SRF made a donor-advised grant to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom); the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy; MADRE; the Ms. Foundation for Women; The Nation Institute; the National Lawyers Guild; the National SANE Education Fund; the National Security Archive; the New Israel Fund; Nonviolent Peaceforce; the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; the Paul Robeson Foundation; Pax Christi USA; the Peace Action Education Fund; Physicians for Human Rights; the Proteus Fund; and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, the Tides Center; the Transnational Institute (which the Rubin Foundation created in 1973); the United Nations; and the Women’s Action for New Directions Education Fund.

To view a list of additional noteworthy grantees of the Samuel Rubin Foundation, click here.

SRF has been a longtime member of the the Peace and Security Funders Group.

(Information on grantees and monetary amounts courtesy of The Foundation Center, GuideStar, ActivistCash, the Capital Research Center, Undue Influence, and SamuelRubinFoundation.org.)

Additional Resources:

Further Reading: “Foundation History” & “Our Mission” (SamuelRubinFoundation.org);  Samuel Rubin Foundation: Grants for Global Security & Human Rights” (InsidePhilanthropy.com); “The Reminiscences of Cora Weiss” (Columbia Center for Oral History, 2014).